Confetti Bean Soup

My favorite market has a bulk foods section. Buying my dry beans and grains there saves me money, especially when compared to buying beans by the can, couscous by the little cardboard box, or oatmeal in individual packets (less packaging too!). Once home, I store most things in a variety of glass jars. It's easy to find and use things, plus I can see when I'm getting low on something. Besides, having everything in sight, as opposed to stuffed into a dark cupboard, makes it that much more likely I'll use it.

I like the way it looks too - so homey - decorative, and colorful too. Dry beans, especially, come in such a variety of colors - lined up in glass jars they can almost look like art. Around here, we usually have a "legume of the week." Each weekend, I cook up a big pot of a different bean, and then refrigerate the leftovers. Legumes come in such variety, we can go for weeks without repeating. And then, I can vary the way I use them throughout the week, too. It's nice to have something readily available for dinner on days when I don't feel like cooking.

Over time, I've developed a pretty good eye when it comes to buying in bulk. I'm pretty good at eye-balling how much will fit in the jar when I get it home. When I have a bit too many beans though, or a last little bit left in a jar before buying more, they go into the confetti bean jar. When I have at least four cups in there, I make confetti bean soup.

My Confetti Soup recipe originally came as a gift in a jar. I've since adapted it to put together my own gift baskets. I layer scant cups of black, red kidney, green split peas, white great northern, and brown pinto beans in a quart jar (or just fill with all of them mixed together), and then add a seasoning packet, pint jar of home-canned tomatoes or tomato sauce, and a recipe card.

Confetti Bean Soup (12 first course, or 6 entree servings)

4 cups mixed dry beans (best if some of them are split peas)
16 oz. stewed tomatoes

Seasoning
3 teaspoons beef bouillon powder
3 tablespoons dried chopped chives
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried savory
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 bay leaf

Sort through beans and remove any stones or shriveled beans. Rinse in cold water. Quick-soak in 9 cups water: heat to boiling over high heat, boil 5 minutes, remove from heat, cover, and let stand one hour. Drain soaked beans, rinse, drain again.

To drained beans, add 8 cups water and seasoning. Bring to boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer 2-3 hours or until beans are tender.

Add tomatoes. Simmer, uncovered, 15 minutes. Discard bay leaf, and serve.

Microwave Broccoli Cheese Soup

Why open a can, when you can have homemade soup, with fresh ingredients, in less than 20 minutes? This is a good way to use up a little bit of leftover meat, and these veggies are at their best right now. Add a slice of rustic garlic bread, toasted and buttered, and we have a favorite autumn dinner. Tonight, I added a glass of Chardonnay; Aries had a glass of home-brewed dark beer. Hot food, warm tummies.

Microwave Broccoli Cheese Soup (serves 2)

1 cup thinly sliced carrot
1 cup chopped fresh broccoli (or a 10-oz pkg frozen broccoli; or substitute fresh or frozen cauliflower)
1 teaspoon instant chicken bouillon granules (optional)
1 cup milk
½ cup shredded cheese (I like cheddar or swiss)
½ cup finely chopped cooked meat (I like chicken, ham, or turkey ham)
2 tablespoons flour

In a 1-quart glass casserole dish, stir together the carrots and broccoli with ½ cup water and chicken granules if using (instead of the little bouillon jars in the soup section of my market, I buy the bigger, cheaper jars from the Mexican food section; if you happen to have some stock in the fridge, instead of the water, even better!). Microwave, covered, 5-7 minutes or until the veggies are tender, stirring once. Stir in the milk, cheese, and meat. Mix the flour into ½ cup cold water until smooth, and stir that in also. Season with a bit of black pepper. Microwave, uncovered, 5-6 minutes, stirring every minute or so, until thickened and bubbly. It's soup!

I just had to post a sunrise photo Aries took this morning, too.

Soup & Bread for Christmas Eve

The traditional Christmas Eve supper at our house growing up was always Oyster Stew. Basically just canned oysters (we were in land-locked Colorado, after all), milk, and butter, served with round oyster crackers. It was ok, but I didn't really like eating the big oyster chunks. The hot, buttery milk was good, but not really enough. So I've adapted Dad's tradition to suit my own tastes. Sticking with the idea of a seafood soup, I make a red vegetable chowder using canned baby clams. Add a homemade artisan-style crusty loaf of bread and some champagne with a splash of peach brandy (a budget Bellini, and really dresses up cheap champagne) and we've got a wonderful Christmas Eve supper (candlelight optional).

Vegetable Clam Chowder (makes 4-6 supper-size servings)
1 cup clam juice
1 cup water
8 oz tomato sauce
16 oz canned whole tomatoes, cut into chunks
2 medium potatoes, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 onions, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 tablespoon marjoram
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon sugar
10 oz canned baby clams
1 cup corn, fresh or frozen
salt & pepper to taste

Combine clam juice (from canned clams too), water, tomato sauce, tomatoes, potatoes, green pepper, carrots, onion, celery, marjoram, thyme, salt, pepper, and sugar in large saucepan. Bring to boil. Lower heat, cover, and simmer about 20 minutes, or until vegetables are crisp-tender. Add clams and corn. Simmer soup for another 10 minutes. Adjust seasonings to taste. Optional: garnish with chopped parsley when serving.

I'm starting the bread tonight - a very wet, no-knead dough that gets its flavor from sitting overnight on the counter; its crusty goodness from being baked inside a very hot dutch oven. The recipe is now many places on the Internet. I first came upon it a year ago in Mother Earth News and love how easy it is to turn out an artisan-style loaf, without any fancy equipment, and very little effort (read the article all the way through, and some of the comments - I love the suggestion to use your microwave as a bread box. I, too, have to reduce the heat a bit for my cast-iron dutch oven, but the amounts work well for me).

Red Gazpacho

A lot of the garden is behind its usual ripening schedule. I think maybe the weeks of smoke-darkened skies earlier this summer might have set things back a bit. Usually, by this time of year, I've canned a batch of tomato sauce and another of whole tomatoes. But this year, the first of the tomatoes are just now starting to turn red. No matter - if I have to, I'll pick the green ones when the first freeze threatens and ripen them inside for a batch of sauce. But right now, I can finally start lunching on fresh red gazpacho - a liquid salad-soup always served cold. I have a couple of half-gallon canning jars. They're too big to use for canning, but they're perfect for refrigerating this recipe.

Red Gazpacho (makes approx ½ gallon)

3 pounds ripe tomatoes - peeled and seeded*
1 cup fresh tomato juice*
1 green bell pepper - seeded and ribs removed
1 red onion
1 large cucumber - peeled and seeded
6 tablespoons red wine vinegar
3 large garlic cloves
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 slice stale bread - crusts removed, soaked in water and squeezed dry
salt, pepper to taste

Working in batches, liquefy everything in a blender. Combine and refrigerate at least one hour. Stir or shake well before serving, in a soup bowl. Optional: garnish with croutons or your choice of diced pepper, cucumber, onion, or cherry tomato (or just add them all!).

*to prep tomatoes: drop into simmering water for just a minute or until peel cracks, and then immediately move to cool water (my go-to implement for doing this: scissors-style salad tongs). When cool enough to handle, peel and squoosh seeds out with your finger into clean bowl. When all tomatoes are processed, pour and press bowl contents through sieve to get the 1 cup fresh juice.

Under Pressure - Beans in a Pressure Cooker

I grew up in Denver, Colorado, the mile-high city. One of our standard junior high science class experiments was measuring the temperature of boiling water. The higher in altitude, the lower the temperature at which water boils. So, when I grew up, I knew that things would take longer to cook than stated in recipes written for sea-level cooks. Then, I moved to Leadville, Colorado.

Leadville, at 10,250 feet, is the highest city in the U.S. - essentially two miles high. I had to learn to cook all over again. Quartered potatoes needed to boil for an hour! But there was a time-saving solution - with a pressure cooker, altitude ceases to be an issue. I could have tender potatoes, soups, or stews in less than 15 minutes time. That alone was worth learning to use this scary-sounding device.

My cooker is the type with a rocker-type weighted control with three different size holes for the differing pressures. It will hold 4 narrow-mouth pint canning jars, so can also be used for small-batch pressure canning. When it reaches pressure, regulated by which side of the pressure control is down, it rocks the weight and rattles and hisses as the steam escapes. I lower the heat until the hissing spurts are 1-2 times per minute. I can then set the timer and go about my business around the house, knowing to come check if the sound stops.

Where pressure cookers really shine is cooking beans. Dry beans are so economical, but the time involved in preparation leads a lot of busy women to buy canned beans instead. I'll sometimes soak my beans overnight if I'm making a crockpot recipe the next day, or I've also used the speed-soak method of bringing them to a boil for 10 minutes and letting them sit for an hour if I've got the time to then cook them for 3-4 hours. But with a pressure cooker I can make a soup or chili, from dry beans and scratch ingredients, in less than a hour (pre-soaking, if you have the extra hour, helps keep pressure-cooked beans intact as they cook).

Pick over and rinse your dry beans, then put them in the pressure cooker, without the inside rack, with 3-4 times as much water. In my pressure cooker, 2 cups beans and 6 cups water works out right. I just add water until it's at least an inch above the beans - as long as you fill the cooker only half-full. Seal the cooker, and bring to 15 pounds pressure. Most beans - pinto, red, white, black, and soy - take 30 minutes once the cooker is up to pressure (garbanzos take 45 minutes; do NOT cook split peas or pea soup in a pressure cooker - they can foam up and block the steam valve). When the time is up, cool the cooker under cold running water until the pressure drops, open it, and you've got cooked beans ready to eat, as is, or to add to the soup/chili ingredients you've prepared in the meantime. Tonight, I started some white beans in the cooker; cut up, then simmered butternut squash, carrots, and onions; and pureed them just in time to add the beans. Home-cooked bean soup for dinner in less than an hour.